been transferred from a Communist prison in Vietnam to a mental hospital, BosNewsLife learned Friday, March 25. Le Thi Hong Lien, was transported to the Mental Hospital of Bien Hoa, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north-east of Ho Chi Minh City after "a concerted international appeal to Vietnamese authorities to provide Ms. Lien with the care and treatment she needs," said the Mennonite World Conference (MWC).
Her father, Nguyen Quang Du, also sent a letter to "high officials asking that she be treated because she was weak and mentally deranged," added MWC, a global community of Christian churches who trace their beginning to the 16th-century Radical Reformation in Europe.
Human rights watchdog have linked the mental health problems of the 21-year old woman to torture and other abuse in prisons since June 2004 when she was arrested along with a number of other members of the Mennonite community on charges of "resisting a person performing official duty". She was sentenced November 12 to one year in prison.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International considers Lien a "prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of her fundamental rights to freedom of expression and association."
JUNGLE JAIL
Lien arrived at the hospital after she was initially transferred from the feared Ho Chi Minh City’s Chi Hoa prison to a jail in the jungle of Binh Phuoc province, about 170 kilometers (105) miles north of Ho Chi Minh City, MWC said in a statement obtained by BosNewsLife.
"She was unable to care for her personal hygiene, was suffering from edema and had not eaten for several days," the organization quoted her father as saying. On March 1 was "Mr. Du informed that she had been taken to the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital" a day earlier.
"A few days later her father, mother and brother visited her for 20 minutes, and she exhibited the same poor health. As they prayed with her, she did not even look at any of them," added the MWC.
FATHER FRUSTRATED
Her father was reportedly frustrated about "those who are unable to repent and continue to do things which are not right to my daughter, yet always give the impression that they are doing all they can for her." When he visited Lien March 12 "two policemen brought his daughter out of a room in which she was locked, and she sat opposite him, crying, her feet still swollen and her face covered with skin infection," the MVC said
"My daughter is not with any women at all, only with men–guards and police. I am very concerned about my daughter," her father said in a statement distributed by the MWC. "Caught in a wolf trap, nothing has changed; her health situation is not improving, and her mental health is in no way restored," he added.
The MWC said it had asked "church leaders for continued prayer and support for Ms. Lien and her family." Church officials had hoped the young woman would be among the 8,000 prisoners who were granted amnesty by the Communist government last month to celebrate Vietnam’s Lunar New Year.
Under pressure from the international community, several prominent Christian and other religious leaders as well as political dissidents were also released in recent weeks. However many Christians are still detained across the Communist nation, human rights groups say. (With: BosNewsLife News Center, reports from Vietnam, BosNewsLife Research).
